Keep Hoping Machine Running

The One That Will Give You Flashbacks to the 1980s, Even If You Didn't Live Through Them. Kings of the Air, by fabularasa. Top Gun, Iceman/Maverick.

Okay. So. Two years ago, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, I re-watched Top Gun. I had not seen that movie in a long, long time. It, um, looked a lot different the second time around. (This resulted, by the way, in a never-posted Top Gun recap that would probably have broken the LJ post character limit, and 30% of those characters were along the lines of "RANDOM GAY VOLLEYBALL PORN OH MY GOD ARE THEY FUCKING KIDDING?")

Anyway. My point is: this is the story for that movie. This is what they were working towards the whole movie, even if they didn't know it (although, Jesus - how could they NOT know, given all that random gay porn?). This is the only story you need to read for this fandom. Although I myself would not mind several thousand more stories exploring the really gay, not really subtext of Top Gun, but my point is: if we never get them, that's fine; we can still file this fandom in the box marked "done," thanks to this story alone.

This is also a story you can totally read if you've never seen the movie. I will provide you with a summary, in case you need it. Spoilers, obviously.

Maverick: Hi, I am a Navy pilot, and I am just totally awesome. People cannot even get over how awesome I am. I sure can't get over it, because I am such hot shit my ass routinely catches on fire. Hey, would you like my autograph? Yeah, that'll be fifty bucks.
Goose: I am Maverick's gunner or wingman or something, and he's, yeah, fairly awesome. I am a nice guy who has a lovely wife and adorable small children. This is usually a terminal condition in an action movie. Just, you know. FYI.
Iceman: I am also a pilot. And, Maverick, sometimes when your ass is on fire, it's because someone is beating it. That person would be me.
Charlie: I am the token girl. I have a Ph.D. and a desire to fuck one of my students! And, mmmm, I love the taste of arrogance in the morning. Now, who shall I pick?

[Painful singing interlude.]

Charlie: I choose you, Pikachu! I mean, Maverick!
Maverick: Yay. And yet - Iceman - I must - um, engage in conflict with him. Yes. Conflict.
Iceman: You're not hot enough or good enough to engage with me, boyo. Just stand there and let me stare at you.

[Random gay volleyball porn.]

Iceman: Maverick, you piss me off so much that I need to punch you just so I can feel my skin against yours.
Maverick: YES, BABY, YES. Fuck - I mean punch - me harder.
Goose: *dies*

[WOE.]

Iceman: I win the competition we were having to be the best Navy pilot in all the land!
Maverick: PUNCH ME HARDER. I mean. Um. Yeah, you win. But I have Become a Man! In all senses of the word! Oh, god, YES.
Charlie: ...Wasn't I supposed to be the love interest?
Goose: *remains dead*

The One That Teaches Us That Brain Parasites Can Be an Effective Therapy. (Don't Try This in the Real World, Though.) Tongues of Men and Angels, by mad_maudlin. Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay.

Okay. I have - a thing. The Goa'uld make me want to CLAW MY SKIN OFF. Just, you know, preemptively. In case they turn out to be real. And yet. This story, for me, is alllll about a relationship, and it's not the McKay/Sheppard one. (Not that I am not bang alongside the McKay/Sheppard one, of course. I enjoy it! I am pleased it is here! But it is not the centerpiece of the story for me.)

Because this is a non-Atlantis AU, and there are Tok'ra in it, and this, for me, is about what being a Tok'ra is like. It's about the relationship between Tok'ra and host, and it's the first story I've ever read that made me believe the Tok'ra might be more than just Goa'uld with slightly (slightly!) better press. I actually like the Tok'ra, as they are portrayed here. Okay. A few of them. But that is a huge thing for someone who is as mind-controlling-parasite averse as I am!

But this story is 60k words of gateversey goodness, so it is also a fantastic action piece, and it has great hurt/comfort, and some very nice bits for SG1, and engineering, and sarcasm, and, just, everything I want from an SGA story (except Go-playing ghosts and John and Rodney turned into seahorses who are disturbed to discover that MPreg is their new canon, because no SGA story can be absolutely everything). In fact, this story probably also makes perfect toast and can bring rain to parched lands. It's that good, people.

And it's amazing to me, because it's a happy ending for John and Rodney that doesn't involve Atlantis, and the thing is - I always kind of assumed that there wasn't a happy ending for them that didn't involve Atlantis, largely because, well, it seemed like they had had that relationship conversation with earth. You know, the one that goes, "It's not you, it's me. It's just - we don't feel the same way, and we want different things, and - yeah. I mean. I care. I do. But it's not working out." (In Rodney's case, he'd be the one saying this. In John's case, it'd be earth.) So I am frankly stunned that mad_maudlin could use the guys as, you know, roughly the same people (and not seahorses or circus performers or satellites or whatever) and find them a happy ending that does not involve a certain imaginary flying city.

Anyway. Read this. It's awesome.

The One with the Most Nearly-Literal Slave Collar I've Yet Seen That Is Canonical. Did the Canon Writers Notice This? Were They Paying Attention? Figure It Out, by lightgetsin. White Collar, Elizabeth Burke/Peter Burke/Neal Caffrey.

Okay. I do not know from White Collar. I'm at that stage where I have to check IMDb to find out what the full names of the characters are. Usually, at this stage, I have about a one-sentence summary of the fandom in my head, but in this case, I don't. Instead, I have a picture. Which I am unfortunately unable to show you, because I can't get into LJ Scrapbook for some reason Which I can totally show you, thanks to tzikeh. (It shows Neal handcuffed to Peter, who is kissing Elizabeth.) And, really, that says it all. Or at least all the parts I'm interested in.

Anyway. Like I said, I don't know from White Collar, but based on this story, if the DVDs were available, I would totally have Best Beloved watching it already. I might even be watching an episode myself (although that is unlikely, what with my current Kirk and Spock issues - but the very fact that I, deep in this weird TOSian fever, am willing to consider watching something else is significant). Because the characters are awesome, the concept is deeply appealing, and the dialog is first rate. In the story, I mean. My primary concern, if I had Best Beloved watch this, would be that the canon might not measure up to the fan fiction. This has happened before.

But, oh, it would almost be worth it, to know these three people better. Plus, you know, other people. I am sure there are other people in the show worth knowing. Probably.

So, this story - well. It is about Neal (conman!) and Peter (conman-catcher!) and Elizabeth (person who catches the conman-catcher!) and their really pure true love. But what I mostly love about it are the central questions it seems to ask, which is - how do you trust someone whose whole life has been built around making people trust him even though he's not, you know, actually trustworthy? How do you love someone whose job it is to make people love him? (And I would just like to note that it is awesome that for once the person whose job it is to make people love him is not a prostitute.) And exactly what happens when what is holding you together goes away?

(SECRET HINT: Sex! And PURE TRUE LOVE. And, knowing these three, someone (Neal) getting tied to something. But that's just my guess.)

The One Where We Learn That Even Logic Crumbles in the Face of a Really Short Skirt. Listening to Hear Where You Are, by frostfire_17. Star Trek Reboot, Jim Kirk/Spock/Nyota Uhura.

Sooooo. As some of you may be aware, I have recently had my brain taken over by Star Trek: TOS. And Reboot. Anything with a Spock, basically. (This is a painful process, but I am told that eventually I may regain the ability to speak in complete sentences, so I am trying to be strong. And you should all give Best Beloved massive, massive love for standing by me through it.) And, see, my TOS obsession makes this story even better (although I'm going to be honest here and say a) it did not need to be made even better and b) Frostfire may be liable for various damages to readers' brains for the stunning level of betterness in this story even without TOS as a point of reference), because now I have seen the women's uniforms that are the centerpiece of this, and, well.

Look at some of the images Frost linked to in her notes.

Okay. Now picture that outfit on Reboot Kirk. (In a fetching shade of gold, naturally). Yeah, I thought that would get your attention. Because, let's be honest here - Kirk was born to wear that dress. And Spock and Uhura were born to fuck him senseless in it.

Seriously, this is like 8k words of fantastic threesome porn, which is all by itself a reason to love the story, but what I really love, here, is how in character everyone is. This is an awesome Uhura, an awesome Spock, and a Jim Kirk in a dress. (Which is, obviously, the definition of awesome.)

And it's also an awesome use of a costume that actually made my jaw drop the first time I saw it in action, because holy shit that is a short dress. (Usually the argument against skirts on people in space is that if there's an artificial gravity failure, the wearer will end up with a skirt in the face. Let's just say that is not a problem here, since in the event of a gravity failure, this skirt will look exactly the same.) This story made me love the uniform a lot more than I previously did.

Also, did I mention the threesome porn?

The One to Read to Remind Yourself It Could Always Be Worse: You Could Be Spending the Holiday of Your Choice with the U.S. Congress. Die Hard 4.5: I'll Be Hard for Christmas, by Aja, aka bookshop (thanks to multiple people!). Live Free or Die Hard, Matt Farrell/John McClane.

I'm going to just pause for a minute so you can let the awesomeness of the title wash over you. Pause - pause - pause. Are you ready? Let's move on.

So, I think the title alone is sufficient reason to convince anyone, including people who haven't seen the movie (me!) and people who sometimes fantasize about punching Bruce Willis in the teeth (hardly me at all, anymore), to read this story, but I have more reasons even than that.

Like, okay, obviously I haven't seen the movie, but I always think the aftermath of action movies would be so much more interesting than the part where our hero blows something up and our villain meets his graphic end, often more than once. What happens when our hero stands up in the wreckage of a major American city, tosses aside his rebar, and goes back to work the next day? (Or, okay, six to eight weeks later, to allow for healing.) And that's what this story is about.

I also have to note that this story has the most wonderful original character ever. (At least, I'm assuming he's original. If he's a stealth crossover from somewhere, please god tell me where.) I don't know when I last met a character who could pack so much world-weary, cynical snark into a single sentence. Every bit of this story that he's in is awesome, and I would totally read a large number of stories in the Amit Sasses Washington fandom, or whatever it would be called.

Plus, you know, there's a whole thing where Matt and John find love in the midst of briefings and Congressional meetings, which has to be a first. (At least, it's a first in that no one was prosecuted or lost a major election afterwards.)

And there's a fivethirtyeight.com reference. Seriously, there's something here for every fan, except possibly those who hate happiness and good sex.

I think my Yuletide glut has finally run its course. To celebrate: small fandoms!

The One That Shows Us That "Economy Sized Jackhole" Can Totally Be the Language of Love. (In Fiction. Probably You Should Not Test Drive That in Real Life.) What's the Story, Morning Glory?, by liviapenn. Psych, um. I consider this gen? I don't know. Categories are haaaard, people. But if there's a pairing, it's Burton Guster/Shawn Spencer.

So, Best Beloved has seen a season or two of Psych. I myself have not watched even an episode, and not just for my usual "television, so hard, woe is me" excuse. See, I understand that it can be lethal to people with severe embarrassment squicks. (No, really. I hear there are people who have embarrassment squicks gibbering in St. Mungo's because they were locked in a small room with Psych playing 24/7. It was apparently one of Voldemort's crueler tortures.) Often, even the fan fiction is fairly embarrassment-intensive.

But. The thing is. The Gus/Shawn pairing is so appealing and so obvious that I ship them intensively just from the tiny snippets (certified embarrassment-free) that Best Beloved had me watch. It's one of my favorite kinds of pairings: They are super good friends! Who clearly love each other! And are always there for each other! Above all others! C'mon, guys, just make out already!

So I am extremely delighted by this, which gives some gorgeous Gus and Shawn backstory that you can read either as gen or as the prelude to, you know, sex. (They already have true, true love. Canonically. Like, the kind of love where you know neither one will ever have an outside relationship that lasts longer than six months, and any relationship that does last that long will end with the other party saying, "I'm leaving because I'm sick of being a distant second to your best friend." And then, if it's Shawn, the person will add, "You asshole," and if it's Gus, the person will say, "But I really want to stay friends, okay? God, I care about you so much. I can't believe I'm breaking up with you.") I myself read it as gen but remain convinced that there is sex in this story's future, because I like to take every path there is. (This is entirely true, and let me tell you: it did not make me popular back when I played AD&D. But it did mean I was always the one with a good map.)

Either way, this is an awesome story, and has the bonus of being about these fabulous characters and not containing anything that will make my fellow blush squickers want to die.

The One with a Title So Good That I Can't Think of a Better Title for the Rec. The Underwire Job, by brown_betty (whose user name is giving me a great deal of trouble for some reason; in my Kindle, she's Brown Bewtty and Brown Better and Burn Betty) and emeraldwoman (who has no unfortunate Kindle aliases as yet). Leverage, Alec Hardison/Parker (who apparently does not have a first name, unless that is her first name, in which case she does not have a last one).

And, see, this would be one of those fandoms where I had to use the power of the internet to find out things like, oh, the characters' full names, and also, you know, what it is, exactly. (A television show! Apparently about people who, in a strange twist of events, do not fight crime! They make it instead. I guess maybe the crime-fighting field was getting overcrowded.)

I just. Okay. I love these characters. I have no idea if they're like that in the canon, but in this fan fiction, they are made of love. It's like someone asked me what I would find appealing in characters, and then made two of them. (Parker and Hardison, for the record. I am sure Elliot also brings the awesome on a regular basis, though.) I have re-read this thing maybe 15 times since it was posted, and that's solely because I want to spend lots and lots and lots of time with Parker and Hardison. I want them to get married and have geeky, antisocial babies. And then I want fan fiction about the babies. It's that bad, people.

And then. Well. There's plot, and kittens, and World of Warcraft jokes, and pushup bras, and frankly this story makes me giggle with glee just thinking about it. I cannot even tell you how much I love it.

But mostly it's the characters. I could spend my whole life with these people, I think. (Except Nate and Sophie, who frankly do not seem that interesting. Should I find them interesting? Do they have a secret sorrow? Or, better, a total lack of secret sorrows? And, oh oh oh, can either of them travel through time? The only thing this story lacks to make my joy complete is time travel.)

The One That Proves That Real Heroes Are Just as Irrationally Careless of Their Hearing When They Aren't Saving the World. (Someone Please Tell Me There Really Isn't a Ballpark That Close to an Airport.) National Pasttime, by Dira Sudis, aka dsudis. Live Free or Die Hard, John McClane/Matt Farrell.

First, let me offer my caveats. I did not see Live Free or Die Hard. I have, however, seen the original Die Hard, and based on my knowledge of that, I am guessing that in this canon there is a terrible threat against a member of John McClane's family and, you know, loads of other people. (A city? The country? The universe? Oh, oh, now I want to see Die Infinitely Harder, which would be set in SPACE, and it would feature John McClane - and Matt, why not? - versus bad guys in a SPACE STATION that they're going to take over and use to hold the whole world hostage. I like my cheese with zero gravity, moviemakers!) I am guessing there are manly grimaces and various wounds and weapons and last second saves. I am guessing someone says "Yippee ki yay, motherfucker."

I am hoping, based on the title, that this all takes place in New Hampshire, but I'm not betting on it. (Side note: if they decide to do a complete run of state motto titles, I don't want to be here for Die Hard Is Okay, although probably that would be the one where John McClane gets the therapy he so clearly needs.)

In other words, I know very little about this canon. Apparently, though, Brandon from Galaxy Quest is in it. And apparently - I find this so unspeakably odd I can hardly type the words - he has sexual chemistry with Bruce Willis. (I didn't know anyone had ever had sexual chemistry with Bruce Willis. Imagine my surprise!) Now, I have avoided learning anything else about this pairing, for the simple reason that big age differences make me vaguely geechy.

And then Dira wrote a story, and I put it on my Kindle in a moment of weakness, and I was lost. I don't even know why this pairing is so appealing, or why this story works so well for me. I just know I am now grimly trundling off to look for other stories in this fandom, even as I mutter under my breath about how I don't like large age difference pairings, and I haven't even seen the movie, and and and.

But it's hopeless. I loved this pairing and this fandom from about the thousandth word of this story. And if you read it, well, I would appreciate that. It's nice to have company in love.

The One about the Gay Superpowered Flying Alien from an Exploded Planet. No, the Other Gay Superpowered Flying Alien from an Exploded Planet. You Thought There Was Only One? Moab, by Parhelion, aka cirurussundog. Zenna Henderson's People series, OMC/OMC. (Do not run screaming into the night! That's not always a bad thing. And it's very in keeping with the universe.)

So, first, a summary of the People series, which, for a change, is a canon I do know. (Pause while I regroup from the shock.) The homeworld of an intelligent civilization of alien humanoids blows up. To the great surprise of many, they do not send earth just one scion who will grow up to have a lot of abilities and an unnatural fondness of skintight primary colors. Instead, they have a sort of diaspora. A bunch of them end up on earth, scattered in the Southwest. They, of course, have special abilities (that comes standard with the planet explosion in the civilization building kit). Sometimes they fit in; sometimes things work out. Sometimes they don't. Eventually most of them clump together and head out for somewhere better than earth (but less likely to explode than their homeworld, one hopes).

As it happens, I like this series a lot. But I love what Parhelion has done with it so very much more. Because there are gaps in Henderson's series, and what she's done - well. She's created a Person (do they get the capital letter in the singular? I have no clue) who I find more interesting and memorable than any of the characters in the original stories, and she's addressed a topic that I, frankly, find way more interesting: were there any People who were, you know, different? Unwilling to be folded into the big happy People sandwich? And, hey, maybe gay?

(Look, I'm a slasher. This can't be a surprise to anyone reading this. Or, hey, if it is? Possibly you are thinking of some other thefourthvine.)

This is one of the standout Yuletide stories of all time for me. (Not, you know, standing out in the same sense as the Carebears BDSM; that also stands out, but in a totally different way. Yuletide is large. It contains multitudes.) The style is perfect. The tone is perfect. The character is perfect. This is the People series, but better. As in, whenever I want to re-experience that universe, I will most likely turn to this story, not the originals. I can't think of anything more I can say to convince you, but oh: if you like the People series at all, read this.